


Into The Days Of Our Grace Returning

by maevestrom



Series: Vildeblume Cafe Collection: FE Femslash July 2019 [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, F/F, Generation Gap, Long Lost Romance, Queer Youth, Star-crossed, Tragic Romance, reconnect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 11:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19852402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevestrom/pseuds/maevestrom
Summary: Day 5: DeterminationNineteen-year-old cafe waitress and junior lesbian Lune finds herself in the middle of the star-crossed long-lost romance between a woman who is as kind and frail as her opposite is bitter and hardy, but amid the confusion of adult things and long-distance complications that make her re-evaluate her own romantic ideals, Lune feels that it would be moving heaven and earth to get Severa and Noire to even reunite- but she'll be the lesbian Atlas if she needs to be.





	Into The Days Of Our Grace Returning

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Maeve's Femslash Week project, the Vildeblume Collection! All seven of the upcoming stories will have the hub or launchpad of the fictional Vildeblume Coffeeshop. All of the pairings you will see are (mostly) cross-stories with a Fates character and Awakening character.
> 
> I am spoiling myself rotten with this one. It is 7pm the day before day 5 and I am still posting this.

Lune isn’t what she would call a very smart person, but she’s got amazing instincts. She knows when something happens, whether or not it’s going to matter. Go figure she works in a popular dating destination between different women, where she could test those instincts. Will they last? Sometimes, she gets the sense that they will. Sometimes, her best friend Soleil brings in a girl or picks one up in the cafe, and there’s no chance that she’ll ever see that girl again. Still, Noire gives her that feeling of something important happening, of _being_ important, but through all of the years of Noire attending even when Lune was a patron and not a waitress, she was always, _always alone_.

The staff is getting ready to close up shop one fall day when Lune finds that Noire is still there while cleaning the countertop, nursing a tea that has gone so stale that even seeing it makes Lune cringe. _The goddamn thing is probably cold as ice now. Must have been here forever._ While she doesn’t really know the olive-skinned older woman draped in cardigans and hair that isn't blue, black, or purple, but midnight, Flora has pointed out that Noire’s been a regular in the cafe since before Lune was born, so that alone makes her feel like a familiar. Someone to be worried out, in this case.

“Hey, Noire.”

Noire turns towards Lune so smoothly that it’s as though the stool is made of ice and not cherrywood. Reading her nametag: “Hi, Lune.” 

Lune takes that time where she’s supposed to look at Noire to assess her emotional state. Noire looks… aged. Not old, but aged, like an unplanned victim of the years that pass. She also looks like she’s infinitely sad but unable to cry. When she tries to smile, Lune tries to look unassuming in kind but she’s never been good at hiding her feelings on her face and probably looks as incredulous as she feels. 

Noire recognizes that. “Yeah, I can… yeah.”

Lune shrugs, a dry laugh emitting from her. “Sorry, Noire. Just that mama didn’t raise no fool.” 

Noire points to the rag Lune’s holding. “Sorry I didn’t take the hint. I’ll get out of your way.”

Lune looks at her own hand and realizes that she’s probably scrubbed at one spot of the counter near Noire for a good few minutes. 

“Aw, shit. That’s totally not what I meant! I, uh-” 

With not a brain cell to spare, Lune throws the rag directly behind her. It lands in the sink's soapy water that Lune already filled with dishes, giving Noire the giggles. 

Lune groans. “Damn it, let’s just chalk this up to an off day.”

“I feel that.”

Lune cocks her head before walking to the sink. As she pulls out the rag: “Yeah, that makes me wonder even more what’s going on. Which is what I meant to ask you in the first place, I guess.” 

Noire smiles sadly. “I don’t wanna trouble anyone. You work so hard.”

Lune nods with understanding. That’s hardly honest, just judging by the hollow way that she says it. “You won’t be. You’re basically Vildeblume family here.”

Noire swallows with an echoing gulp. “Well… all I really know right now is that… I was waiting for someone.”

Lune shakes her head. “Stood up, huh? That sucks.”

“Oh, certainly not!” Noire’s passionate defense drops into a distantly bitter “I think. It’s complicated, and…” Another loud swallow. “I gotta figure a few things out.”

Lune clutches her chest. “That makes two of us, sis.”

Noire looks up. “What’s wrong?” 

Lune’s laugh is crackling, smooth in its roughness. “Oh, hell no. Like I’m gonna tell you without you telling me first. Besides, I wanna learn how to deal with rejection.”

Noire chuckles, a tinny, breathy little warning of a laugh. “It’s not gonna nearly be as useful as you think, I promise.”

“Hey, I’m nineteen. There’s no way my story is more interesting than yours.”

A scoff. “I’m not _that_ old, Lune.”

Lune blushes. “Point still stands. I bet you’ve got more of a story than I do.” Then, she leans her chin onto a raised hand, meeting Noire in the eye. Noire gulps but doesn’t move. “Around this time every weekday, we start to close up and the restaurant is empty. Likely time for one of us to hear you talk if you ever figure your little mess out.” 

“Goodness.”

Lune stands up, wondering why the hell she thought it was a good idea to look like she was making Noire an offer she couldn’t refuse. Can she go two fucking minutes without meddling in the love lives of others? Still: “Option’s always open, Noire. It’s what you get for being so loyal.”

Noire smiles. “That makes me really happy,” she says in a tone that tells Lune that Noire is going to wait to tell the story to her. Lune smiles one last time before she gestures vaguely to the sink from earlier, and Noire sends her off with a wave. Lune gets started, proud of herself whenever she sees the reflection of a white bandana, a ginger ponytail, and a chubby face in each piece of cutlery she washes because at least for all of her problems, she can wash a dish really goddamn well.

When Lune returns to grab her dishes, she finds that Noire's left quite the tip.

"Damn." 

Lune's conclusion is that Noire is a very nice person, like _give money to homeless beggars_ nice, and considering that she finds that nice people are generally pushovers, her story is far more interesting than she could ever pretend. 

\---

Noire doesn’t return for the next day or the day after that. Lune supposes that with the day being Friday, she’s just not gonna get to see Noire again. Maybe she shouldn’t have kept it so open-ended but at the same time, she wasn’t gonna scare Noire off like that with commitment. Besides, right now Lune’s so overwhelmed with pet names and other girls and _this-is-my-best-friend-she-works-here_ s and painfully platonic love-yous that she totally understands that sometimes a girl just wants to… not think about things, not feel. 

Lune could sure use the distraction though.

Finally, in the afternoon. Noire returns and stays in the evening. Sure enough, she says hellos to any other workers that pass by but- despite surely knowing them for a long while- doesn’t continue any further. She lifts a lukewarm glass of iced tea out of the way while Lune scrubs and waits for her to place the towel on the lip of a bus rack. Lune says hello like she’s waited for decades to see Noire again, an intensity which Noire perks up at as quickly as she nearly slumps over at. 

“Sorry, did I do something wrong?”

“N-no.”

“You just seem tilted, I guess.”

Noire shakes her head. “I’m not overly surprised, At what's going down, I mean. With this… person.”

“I guess it’s just that, if judging by your drink, you’ve been there for ages.” Lune brushes a few locks of turmeric hair behind her ear. “And I’m not sure why that’s normal?”

“I guess… I’m sort of hoping. This…” Noire gestures to the seat next to her. “This isn’t really being stood up, it's just that…”

“Yeah?” 

Lune can see Flora mopping the floors of the cafe, and lord only knows where Mozu and Olivia were- if Mozu was actually waitressing that night or in the back with the Three Fates cooking up a near-literal storm. Friday nights aren’t very busy at the cafe, because who goes to a cafe at any time after seven in the evening when one tries to be a person? The place is empty enough for Lune to fold her hands and say “I think we got time.”

Noire looks around to confirm this. “Yeah,” she admits as though something heavy is forced into her hands. “Now is as good as ever.” She takes a deep breath, then another, fist clenched. This is something that Noire probably hadn’t told anyone before. It scares the crap out of Lune, but oh well. 

“How many redheads do you get in this cafe lately?”

Lune thinks. “One ginger behind the bar is generally the only one that I find worth noting.” Then, she giggles at her own bad joke. Noire follows, something melancholy in her otherwise appreciative laugh. 

“How about… you see one with like… twintails that reach the ground?”

“Can’t say I have. I’d remember that. And probably Soleil would have ask- uhm. Forget about that, go ahead.”

Noire gives her a knowing look, one that decidedly avoids forgetting. “Thanks, anyway. I was curious. She’s… very important to me.”

“Then she should really be here.”

Noire shakes her head. “It’s my fault. We don’t even have like… dates here. I’m not even sure where she is, but… I don’t know who I’d want to see more.”

Lune closes her eyes. Noire _had_ said that her situation was complicated, but now she’s confusing the hell out of whatever brain cells that Lune has left. “So, you… don’t have anything arranged. You just… hope, I guess, that she shows up.”

Noire nods robotically. “Something like that. She knows that I’m here.”

Lune can’t help but expel a forceful breath, taken in by the indiscriminate sadness in Noire’s aura, the kind of sadness that is just there, a few strings on a slide guitar, a blind man humming tenderly at a force that he cannot see.

“I’ll be honest,” Lune promises. "This is all both the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard of and one of the ones that make the least amount of sense.”

Noire takes a sip of her room temperature tea. “I mean, those are generally two of the same things.” 

“You just… wanna see this person so badly that you’re gonna… hope. That of all the cafes in the world over, she’ll wind up in yours.” Lune thinks about waiting forever on someone and how even standing by as she does now feels pathetic. “I mean… okay, but you’re just setting yourself up for hurt.”

Noire stops for a second. Then: “I think… it makes a lot more sense when you realize what she means to me. How… all the waiting in the world would be worth it if I talked to her again. She…”

Noire’s voice breaks. 

“She’s the best that I’ve had. And… I think she’s…”

Noire gets up.

“I should go.”

Lune holds a hand up. “Shit, shit shit _shit_. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Noire plasters on another heavy smile. “No, it’s okay. I just need to… think.”

“You’re mad at me,” Lune sports a mirthless, knowing grin. It’s not as though Lune has ever had any idea of how to talk to women even platonically. She’s probably still in the flustered foot-in-mouth baby lesbian stage that makes her so much less interesting than Noire.

Noire shakes her head. As fragile as it is, it has enough weight to be sincere. “I’m not. I just… need to think things through.” With no more than a goodbye, Noire starts to walk out of the cafe, steps careful and fragile as ever. 

“Bye, Noire,” Lune pulselessly calls after her. Her voice dies down to the jaded whisper of someone inundated with a lack of fairytale endings. “Hope I see you again soon.”

\---

She’s already heard a few employees complain about a case of the Mondays, but generally, Lune isn’t the same way. Weekends were nice for chilling, but Lune doesn’t mind working. She still lives with her parents and has the social life of a gay nineteen-year-old loner, funnily enough. 

Still, weekends are two days where Lune doesn't have to see Soleil and two days of her getting her own shit worked out, though her short-tempered barely-subtle jealousy at _her_ dates probably says a lot, but changes nothing. At least Lune can blame it on her not going on a real date in fucking forever, but that's not fooling anyone except dumbass Soleil, apparently.

How did Lune get to a point where she wants to avoid her best friend? A lot of complicated shit, apparently.

Noire finally walks in at around five-thirty, later than usual. It’s an hour and a half to closing, and Noire even finishes her drink. Once things start to close down, Lune starts to wipe things down earlier than usual, Noire offering a smile every now and again. Lune finishes in record time, probably because she wasn’t very thorough and will need to do it again later.

“It’s kind of nice to see you again,” Noire admits with a shy smile that communicates meaning.

“ _Kind of?_ ” 

“Oh, stop it.” Noire reaches for Lune’s hand for a second, surprising the barista. Also reminding her how touch-starved she is in the process. Noire isn’t even Lune’s type and probably a decade or two older, but… she screams romance. She screams the type of romance you only find in tales of old. The kind of gestures that this other woman doesn’t deserve.

Noire notices how one touch sends Lune into a trance and lets her go. “Is something wrong, Lune?”

Lune shakes her head. “Nothing. Just was a little surprised, is all. Usually, when I try to make friends I’ve botched it by now.”

Noire giggles. “You’re a nice girl. I’m glad to be your friend.”

Lune shrugs off her blush. “That’s super kind. And I like you too. You seem to be… I don’t know.” _Kind of a sad sack sucker but also so sweet you give me cavities._

Noire blushes. "Well, once you figure it out, let me know." 

"I'll be sure to." _Though I'll probably need all the time in the world to._ Lune closes her eyes and asks a question to divert her attention. “You said last time _she_ was the best you ever had. What… what do you mean?”

Noire closes her eyes. Lune swears that she sees a sob from her, deep in her gut, overtaking her frail body in an instant like a lightning strike. When Noire looks up, the tears are gone. 

“I feel like… to get into it, I gotta… tell it from the start. Why this woman means so much to me. Why…”

Lune finishes the sentence Noire dropped. “Why you’re waiting for her like this?”

“Something like that.” 

Lune always did love a good love story- the cheesier the better seems to work best for a kid like her. The only way this story could ever end with a lovely woman waiting for her lover’s ship to come in with loyalty even she was scared of herself… well, is if it was predicated by something very schmaltzy and saccharine.

“I’m all ears, Noire.”

Lune was all ears. Lune did genuinely intend to listen as well as she could. She had no idea that it would be such a struggle to act as though she wasn’t beyond moved. That she wanted… if not the situation, the feelings. Lune was always a sucker for, like, fated romance, and Noire's as close as she ever got.

There’s a slight flush as Noire talks about how despite being five years older, her friend- back then just her sister Nah’s friend who Noire saw occasionally- was always kind to her, always accommodating when she had asthma attacks or _the other one_ would come out, or when she was not up for things Nah and the others teased her for being too chicken to do. The sorrow of Noire’s few friends not keeping in touch with her after they graduated high school makes clouds that are parted by the way she reveals that Severa- the girl’s name revealed to Lune in passing, like _this was always gonna be her_ \- messaged her out of the blue. Noire wears a distinct badge of pride atop a deep-seated sense of humility that Severa kept contacting her, messaging her, updating her, and how that translated to seeing each other in person. When Noire seems to lean into the catalyst and denouement all at once, Lune is listening as though her gay little heart depends on it, while at the same time thinking _shit, nothing actually happens in my life,_ and fear of missing out begins to chip at her. 

“We… we sat down and realized…” Noire blushes. Lune gives her a smile that encourages her to go for it. “We sat down and realized… I think because I was frail and, she’s always been kind of short-tempered… no one was paying us any mind. My friends and I rarely talked, and Nah didn’t really bring Sev up anymore. We didn’t get the time of day from anyone else, and that’s why… that’s why we sort of decided… to do that.”

Lune nods somberly. It’s hard to imagine the start of a relationship as something so… mundane. She figured a big confession would have to happen somewhere. Maybe later, it will get bigger. 

“But at the same time, both of us knew. Both of us knew that it wasn’t gonna last as long as we would have liked.”

“How come?” 

“We were kids, you know. We knew we couldn't be kids forever. So… indulgent." Noire swallows. "She had a scholarship at Nohr, overseas. And I… couldn’t follow her there. It just couldn’t have worked like that.” 

Part of Lune wants to ask why. To her, it’s open and shut. It seems too easy for Noire to work to go with Severa… but at the same time, she’s not gonna ask any of the stupid questions that the young and dumb crowd that _still believes in U-Hauling as a reasonable move_ would ask. (She's pretending she isn't _in_ that crowd, ain't that adorable.)

Noting her silence with a clear of the throat, Noire says “Anyway… we got together that month. We wanted… to show each other what it was like to… well, to be in a couple. Sev said that she never got any real practice with anyone. People didn’t bother with me. So… we finally got to say for a few months that we were girlfriends.”

Luna swallows. “And she was the best you ever had?”

Noire nods. “Maybe it was because she took the whole giving me an experience thing to heart. But… she was really affectionate. She listened to everything I asked. She and I went places we always went alone, and she was… she was always so excited. She made sure she looked out for me when my sickness got in the way and treated me well, but… it was like she always wanted to. And… I hope I reciprocated that. Sometimes it feels like I could have done more. Asked her more about how she felt. Made sure she wasn’t alone." Noire's sigh feels like an apology and Lune can't understand why she should be sorry. "Maybe that’s why I’m here. Cause I wanna make up for that.”

“I think we both know that you’re beyond anything you have to make up for.”

Noire swallows. “I just… we kind of lost touch after a while. Her schooling kept getting prolonged, and I kept getting sidetracked… so much went on. We found our paths. I’m in medicine, she’s in politics. We sort of… fell by the wayside. Cause we never made any long term or long distance plans. We… we set ourselves up to drift away. But…” She starts to sob. “I’m sorry, Lune.”

“It’s okay.” Lune’s voice is in broken awe, shaking as it is shaken. 

_She’s the best I ever had._

Now Lune can see why. 

“I heard from my friend Kjelle that Severa's been back in Ylisstol since the year started, but we hadn’t spoken for a year prior. I'm… scared to talk to her." She looks at Lune. "Is that dumb?" 

Lune's impulse is to scream _yes, yes, absofuckinlutely yes,_ but finds herself shaking her head before she knows why. A few seconds of quiet pass and Lune comprehends the idea of Severa not showing any interest in being friends, which is so sad that it nearly makes Lune cry in real life. Gods, she wouldn't want that sort of confirmation either.

"She knows… I love this place. We both came here a lot back then. I… if she shows up, I can talk to her. I can… get some form of closure.”

Lune nods. “I hope so. I… I want that for you. I… just don’t want you to burn out, I guess. I don’t know much...” Her face darkens. “But I know what it’s like to wear your heart out doing the same thing over and over because nothing else seems right, you know?”

Noire smiles. “You remind me of her.”

Lune points at herself. “You mean me?” When Noire nods: _“Me_ me?”

“You don’t always get why I’m doing what I do. And you just want me to be safe. Like it’s an instinct.”

“I… am not sure how I feel about that.” Lune feels sort of insulted in some ways; it sounds like Severa pulled an overly long ghosting stunt and like hell Lune would ever do that. “I think I’m more saying it like… I know that pain of waiting forever for something that doesn’t come. And… that nerves me out, the idea of it happening to you.”

“That definitely reminds me of her,” Noire whispers. 

“Pardon?”

Noire blinks. “Just thinking aloud. You never did tell me what your whole situation was like.”

Lune blanches, looking like she may vomit in the sink. “Fuck, we were supposed to trade. Well, now I feel like my problems are goddamn puny in comparison. Just…” Lune shrugs dismissively. “Girl problems, I guess.”

“Girl problems? Like… those kinds?”

Lune plays with her hair. “I mean... since you told me… I felt comfortable telling you. Not like half the cafe isn't just fucking _gay_ at any given time." Noire cracks up, and Lune does too at herself. Damn, she has her moments. "But no, that’s… probably why I was so interested, honestly. It’s still so rare to get something, you know, a story that isn’t cheap. And _cheap and immediate_ seems to be how it is.”

“How _she_ is?”

Lune sighs, not realizing how tense she was until she lets herself slack. “Yeah… how she is.” 

Noire takes her hand once more. “I mean… it’s one thing to read a fairy tale, and another to be in one.”

Lune smiles with more sadness than she comprehends. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand that.”

That’s where the conversation ends. The two stop talking, then they drift away. Halfway into her chores leaving and re-entering the shop proper, Lune notices that Noire is gone, only leaving a larger tip than usual in her place. Just enough to be inconspicuous while making Lune wonder if maybe she should read something into it.

\---

A few days pass before Lune sees Noire again. Lune waves, tensed up as Soleil asked prior if she and her latest date could stay past closing time because _I think we got a real spark going between us_ and Lune, the paper dragon she is, relented without a fuss with Flora's okay. She does her best to ignore her unrequited love trying to woo some other random woman and focuses on Noire instead, whose eyes seem to trace her own. She nods with understanding, folding her napkin on her empty plate into a proper triangle. 

“How was the croissant? They can be a little stale this late at night.”

“It was fine, don’t worry.”

Lune nods listlessly, unfocused.

“I think I get it now.” When Lune looks back at Noire, she’s faintly gesturing at Soleil as she exhales in the way one does when they just finished talking.

Lune sighs. “Yeah, l-like I said… really not that big of a deal.”

Noire meets her eyes, and with terror, Lune realizes that she may have been crying a little. “Shit, shit shit _shit_. I, uhm…” She throws her hands up in the air before letting them go to slap against the apron near her thighs. “And here I am mad over it.”

"It's not anger that I see in your eyes.” 

“Listen…” Lune’s attempts to assuage Noire’s nerves fall into nothingness as she cannot naturally follow up that first word. “I just… hate to see great people worried over me. They didn’t ask for my problems.”

“That’s also just like her.”

Lune closes her eyes. “I mean… thanks, I guess.”

“Wouldn’t things be better if you got a little selfish, though?”

Lune chuckles. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Noire smirks. “Well… damn.”

The space between the two is drowned by silence. Noire reaches to get up, slowly as always. She says that she had a nice time, and Lune says she’s happy, even if she doesn’t understand it on the inside. The last trace of the woman that night is a twenty-dollar tip under her plate that Lune reads either too much or not enough into, but sure feels like it would be the last trace of her at all. 

\---

Nothing progresses in the next month or two. Soleil seems as friendly towards Lune as ever, making her adoration swell in the moments where Soleil is too sincere to be trying to win her over. Go figure that her attempts to score a second date with really _any_ woman are always try-hard enough to give Lune secondhand embarrassment, but her normal affectionate, worshipful way of talking to and about Lune could get Soleil all the love she could ask for. Lune isn’t sure which of them is the dumbass, but will accept it if the answer is _definitely both._

Something does change in Soleil, though. It happens around the time when Lune got a cold where she messes up trying to flirt with Mozu and Mozu, a Hoshidan immigrant who is so shy that it hurts, nearly breaks down. Soleil felt bad about it, so much that when Lune tells Soleil that she has to be careful, she sees that Soleil knows and Lune is only angry because it hurts her every time and she can't tell Soleil. Now while Soleil goes to the Vildeblume she either stays alone or already has a date, and Lune is scared she broke Soleil a little, but it's too late now.

Noire doesn’t visit at closing time anymore, especially since winter is crawling in. Winter’s a bad time for business and they close an hour earlier at around that time. Maybe that’s what spooked Noire into only coming during the days when the Vildeblume was bustling and Lune was too busy, but never too busy to take her order and watch her sit at the bar with a wandering eye as others filed into an ebbing and flowing line in front of the register cease to exist. It’s not as though she’s in love with Noire- Noire's old enough to be her mother, after all- but more that Noire is someone she can trust. Lune never realized how rare that was until now when Noire simply makes small talk like she never revealed that Severa existed and Lune feels a bit emptier inside.

For others, it was progressing. Mozu and fellow waitress Olivia seemed to be starting something, in whatever romantic way the two painfully shy women even _did_ anything. The sparks between senior waitress Flora and one of the customers could burn the whole Vildeblume down. At the very least, Lune knew them and loved them in a weirdly protective way. Lune encouraged Mozu to emerge from her cocoon and towards Olivia, if only out of solidarity. Even if that meant that there were other gays that surpassed her in the having-her-shit-together department.

Lune was amused that Olivia, hapless and antisocial cousin of Soleil, was more of a successful gay. In a total _I know I'm a bitch_ way, but at least bitches can openly laugh.

Sometimes other couples would plague Lune with good old fashioned lesbian loneliness, seeing young teenagers talking about their relationship with a surprisingly mature level of awareness, or established pairs with wedding rings and eyes for each other, or really any other woman-loving-woman couple popping in, especially women accompanied by goddamn Soleil, making Lune resent the cafe’s reputation as a sapphic haven for the first time in her life.

Damn, she needs to get over herself soon. 

It’s just hard when she feels so damn alone.

\---

Lune sees two women enter the cafe one afternoon- they are not coupled, but they look anxious enough for her to wonder if dating is a factor at all. The two talk a little, one of them saying “I still can’t believe your Tinder date looks basically like my mother” a little too loudly and getting a laugh that shakes like a palm tree in a hurricane.

“Thanks for introducing me to this place, Selena. I am still so new to town; I don’t know where everything is.”

“No problem. I, uh… I remember it well, Kag.” 

Soon, the two split with Kag, a pantsuited brunette Hoshidan with proper posture at a table for two alone. Flora goes to ask for an order, but Luna hears Kag say with a kind smile and clear, professional tone that she's waiting for someone. Flora chuckles in that sort of joyless, distant way that she always does when she’s trying not to hate herself for faux pas and leaves Kag to it. 

That leads her to the other woman, a dour woman in a gray hoodie and black skinny jeans. Immediately, without even looking up from her book: “No thanks.” Flora turns away with a nervous what-the-hell laugh, disappearing back behind the counter to get more food. Lune can’t help it, she likes that lady already. She was mean to Flora, yeah, but she was probably rude to everyone, and Lune admires the consistency. 

Eventually, a woman rushes in with apologies for being late, and Kag is relieved beyond belief that she has shown at all. Her date is a short woman with red hair down to her waist, dressed in school uniform despite looking in her mid-twenties. Lune can’t think of schools like that for adults so she figures, hey, may as well not kink-shame. Lune can definitely confirm one thing to herself- no way this is any grown adult’s mother. She doesn’t look like she has ever been in charge of anything more than a patch of land in Stardew Valley. 

That’s where it starts as Lune dries dishes and takes orders. It helps to keep her mind from wandering, trying to guess how this new woman- “Cordelia,” Kag presumes- could be the mother of Kag’s friend. All she had to go on was maybe facial similarities. Were they both redheads? They certainly both had freckles near their noses. Similar haughty eyebrows, maybe? It was probably as superficial as “she looked like me”. Not like Lune knows many redheads- just her, now Cordelia, and the woman who Noire told her about-

“Severa?!”

The other woman stands in shock, the edges of twintails teasing out of her hoodie. _Holy crap. She’s here. She’s actually here._ “Who said that?”

“I never thought I’d see you here.”

“Well, I don’t even know who the fuck you are, so…” Severa folds her arms. “That makes two of us.” The quiet is rife with tension between the two, neither quite sure where to go from here until Severa shuts whatever book she’s reading with only enough force to startle someone whose eyes are trained on her. The date continues in the corner of Lune’s eye but soon her focus is stolen by Severa walking to the counter, taking a seat at the bar without the book. She has deep wrinkles that portray a level of exhaustion that her glowing red hair does not. She’s kind of beautiful, in a bitter and poisonous way.

“Wait, how the hell do you know my name?” she whispers. 

Lune puts her hands up. “I’ve heard it around, is all.”

Severa shakes her head. “No. No, that’s not good enough. No one’s called me by that name since…”

She covers her mouth, eyes widening. 

“Oh no.”

The way she says it makes Lune feel vulnerable by proxy. She turns her head away because damn it, she’s probably crying, and why the hell is she crying over this? It’s not like it’s her love story. It's not like she even _has_ a love story. Hell, not like she’s even an avid book reader like so many of the squares she knows. Why is she so invested? 

“Please don’t turn away like that.”

Lune tries to dry her eyes as inconspicuously as possible before facing Severa and her deep-set frown full of more regrets than Lune has experienced in a lifetime. “Was… was she looking for me?”

Lune nods, and Severa swallows, trying to keep from crying. 

“Okay. Okay.” Severa is not okay. Lune doesn’t know much but she knows that Severa is not in the ballpark of being okay. Lune can only think of how much Severa has herself to blame, but… it still doesn’t feel right, if only because Noire seems to have accepted this. 

“If she ever comes back, I’ll let her know,” Lune whispers. 

“Why should _you_ care?”

“Noire is Vildeblume family.” Feeling a bit of bite: “You probably knew that, grandma, you’ve been going here since I was in diapers. If anything bad happens to her, I get defensive.”

“Kid,” Severa bites back with a weary sigh. “I know that ain’t it, okay?”

“Pssh. You don’t know me.”

“I know Noire.”

“Do you really?” 

“I know that she makes friends really easily.” Severa leans into her crossed arms. “I know that she’s got a big heart.”

“No wonder it took you so long to break it.”

Severa sighs, quiet and wounded. It's the closest that Lune has gotten to seeing someone actually commit seppuku.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, that’s… basically what I deserve.”

She turns to Kag. “Hey, Kagero.” Kag- _ero_ turns to face her, then is caught by concern. “I’m gonna get some fresh air. Enjoy yourself, okay?”

“Are you alright, Selena?” 

Selena raises a hand. “I mean it. Enjoy yourself! You’re always so uptight, okay?” Her voice becomes rough yet affectionate, tired of Kagero being too good for her. 

Kagero looks at her, then at a politely smiling Cordelia. Then, back at Selena. “I’ll do so.”

“Good,” Selena demands. “You better not worry about me!” 

“I’ll do my best.” Kagero’s weak response promises nothing. 

Selena nods, then Severa looks back at Lune. “Yeah. I’m chaperoning a friend. She never goes on dates because she’s always busy, or always says she is. I think she’s just a sucker for routine and being stupidly selfless. She was ever since I met her overseas. I don’t know much about this damn _Cordelia_ lady, but as much as she gives me the willies, Kagero seems to like her. So if she tries to back out now and look for me, tell her that _Selena_ said to sit her ass down.”

Severa closes her eyes.

“I know a lot about letting opportunities get away from me.”

“Okay, what’s actually going-”

Before Lune finishes her sentence, Severa is off of the stool, marching outside like her life depends on going. Lune can only watch her go, staring straight ahead so hard that she nearly breaks the windows with her glare. She’s at a crossroads, she can see it. If she talks to Severa, it’s gonna suck. She can’t talk to people she’s friendly with without her stubborn immaturity getting in the way, much less someone she… well, doesn’t hate, but kind of secondhand resents. Yet, if she doesn’t talk to Severa, who’s to say that Severa ever comes back? Who’s to say that the story doesn’t end there?

She sees Mozu pass by and raises her hand. Mozu notices and says “Miss Lune.”

It’s adorable how Mozu treats her like some authority figure and not a dumbass kid who cusses too much. Maybe it’s because despite being a little older than Lune, Mozu is a weird barely post-late-pubescent mix of young, shy, and cripplingly self-conscious, but in reality, there’s no way one of the two are more mature than the other. They’re both dumb and gay together. Really, the whole staff probably is, but that’s beside the point.

“Hey, can you take the front desk for me? I’m gonna go talk to a friend real quick.” Lune almost covers her mouth at the slip, but oh well. Guess Severa’s her friend now. 

Mozu nods. “I can do that,” she says in the most powerfully rural voice that Lune’s ever heard from a Hoshidan. With a barely secretive blush: “Need something to focus on anyways.” 

Lune smiles. “Thanks, Mozu. You’re the realest.” With that, she marches outside, hearing Mozu faintly giggle. Lune has a moment where she thinks _Mozu never giggles_ but doesn’t let herself get distracted right now when she can feel an opportunity slip away in the breeze to help fix things between two adults that she never met. 

She doesn’t know why she cares so much, but she figures that she’ll compartmentalize all that away anyways.

Severa isn’t far. She isn't even ten feet outside of the cafe. She’s sort of sitting on a chalkboard stand with a pink arrow pointing towards the door, looking up at the stars for comfort. Lune can see the tears in her eyes and immediately feels remorseful, but can’t bring herself to apologize. None of the easy fallback options seem like they will resolve this messy situation. 

So she stands next to Severa in silence. Neither of the two looks at each other.

“What do _you_ want?” Amazing how Severa looks to be nearly forty and can still be more immature than a girl who hasn’t even reached twenty. 

“Look.” A few seconds go by. Lune can’t find the right words, so instead, she just goes for it. “Noire’s my friend. We got pretty chummy over the last few weeks. So… I want her to be happy. Just that this whole thing’s more complicated than I expected.”

“Welcome to the world of being a grown-up.”

Lune throws her hands on her lap. “Look, I’m actually trying to help you. Now, this dumbass kid isn’t much, but if she’s the best you can get, just… cut your losses, okay, and settle.” 

She feels Severa’s eyes on her, scanning her up and down. Then, with a nostalgic sigh: “Jesus Christ, kid, you’re just like me.”

Lune glowers. “Noire said that too.” 

“You should probably cut that shit out. The whole ‘being like me’ thing.”

“Hey, I’m nineteen. Noire spoke highly of nineteen-year-old you, no matter what she thinks of you now that you’re fifty-seven.” 

“Haha, kid, very funny. Do I look like I’m fifty-seven?” 

“Pssh, who cares? You seem like you were a very neat nineteen-year-old, and like…” Lune softens. Maybe the stars got to her, or how there are fewer hours in the day now and that reminds her of things ending. Maybe the two-story buildings covered by streetlight and trendy shops closed around her made the Vildeblume feel like home for a while. Maybe it was just that this is her turf, not Severa’s, and Lune’s confident in it enough to be honest.

“A lot of the stuff she talked about. Your patience. Your understanding. Your love of friends… I think you still got it.”

“You think if you flatter me enough, I’ll tip you more?” Severa’s denial seems more insincere by the second, as does Lune shrugging to pretend that she doesn’t care.

“I think that even now that Kagero lady would probably say the same thing. I don’t think you changed. I think you just got scared.”

Severa sighs and looks at Lune. Lune stops looking at the city in front of her and returns it. 

“How old are you actually, kid?”

“I’m actually nineteen.”

“You better not be fucking with me.”

“I wish. I wish I was twenty-nine or something. So that way people would take me seriously.” _Or I would. Either-or._

“Look, you’re at the right age to…” Severa sighs, folding her arms and facing the ground. “Not screw things up. To do what’s right by you, not what’s… right by society.”

“Think I started that all with the whole being gay thing.”

Severa smirks. “That didn’t stop me from worrying. That kind of made it worse, to be honest. I…” She sighs. “Are you satisfied with that?”

Lune doesn’t hesitate. “Being gay? Definitely. I mean, the gay _situations_ I’m in are often kinda shit but… I don’t know. I can’t not, I guess.”

Severa sighs. “Hold onto that. Noire was…” She sighs. “She was the first girl I ever dated. She probably told you about the whole deal between us. Just that…” She swallows. Her face is like Noire’s when she talks about it, too wounded by good memories. “I’d dated a lot of guys before and it was never right, but… I never told her that it felt wrong, cause… I think we both struggled to accept that, you know…” Lune knows, she just can’t fathom it. Lucky her being in a generation where at the very least she’s comfortable enough to rebel by being openly gay. 

“There’s a lot I didn’t tell her. A lot I wish I had. I was just… Nadiya’s friend to her until we really got together, and… I feel like once we did… it was...” 

Severa thinks again and, without warning, starts to cry. Lune isn’t sure what to do. This is all beyond what she knows. This is beyond what she’s learned, a mixture of loss, shame, regret, and nostalgia more powerful than Lune could ever fathom. If this is what love is actually like, then hell, she’s fucking scared. Even scarier is how a friend like Noire and, hell, a friend like Severa, they’re already there. They’re stuck and can’t get out, and that makes Lune devastated to see. 

She never thought herself a happy ending type, but when sad endings are so impossibly sad… 

“I…” Severa tries to clear her throat, pretend she’s not crying. She’s not very good. 

“I think about it all the time now that I'm back in Ylisse. Just… how she felt next to me. How we did the things we always wanted to do. How… how much everything clicked when she told, like… waitresses and staff that I was her girlfriend. I think… I think that’s when I understood pride. Cause I was never prouder. But… I didn’t think I could give up my dreams for that. I didn’t think I actually deserved what I wanted. But now…” 

Lune nods, a hand on Severa’s arm as a few more tears escape. “You deserve it.”

“I don’t feel very deserving,” Severa admits. “I just… want it.”

“Everyone deserves pride,” Lune responds. “Even if they’re kind of assholes sometimes.” Severa chuckles, lightly slapping Lune’s free arm. “And even if you think you don’t, just think of how Noire does.”

“She does.” Severa looks back up at the sky. “She deserves someone who never left. The whole overseas schooling thing was one fiasco after another. Delays, management, then actually getting out into the world… we lost touch over the years. I thought she forgot me. I didn’t know that she was still waiting.” Her eyes close. “And all I can think about is how much I missed her. How good life would have been if I stayed and… was her girlfriend forever.” She starts crying again, and Lune is sad in ways she feels that she’s too damn young to comprehend. 

“Maybe it’s the dumb kid in me having some hope, but…” Lune closes her eyes, ready to promise better for them both. “She visits close to closing. If you wanna show up every now and again, maybe… maybe she’ll show again.” She doesn’t say anything about prodding Noire about showing up. She doesn’t say how badly she wants to set their paths right. She doesn’t even say how much she enjoys helping set women up who like each other. Flora, Olivia, Mozu, they’re sort of irrelevant. They just needed a push. This feels more like setting the world back in orbit, but she’ll be the lesbian Atlas if she needs to be. Just to keep her faith in that world. 

“Maybe I’ll do that,” Severa mumbles. 

Lune smiles. She definitely will.

\---

Severa comes in every day near closing. Noire doesn’t show up at all that week, so it feels fruitless and Lune can’t help but feel frustrated. She’s never been super patient, and this whole situation between the two may as well have gone on forever. 

In the meantime, she finally tells a nervous Flora to ask Kjelle out. Flora’s at her wits’ end with herself- not that she's ever really even tolerated herself, to begin with- and Lune is kind of worried that she’s gonna combust. At least that’s what she tells Soleil Wednesday when she visits alone because she _just wanted to check up on you, Lune._

The two talk about small things until Lune thinks about Flora and lightens her burden by living vicariously through her. “There’s nowhere to go other than to wallow in her feelings and do nothing. Like, if she does nothing now she stays in place.” Lune doesn’t tell Soleil that she knows how much that sucks, but she leaves the hint there.

“That’s really good of you, Lune,” she says. “You’re like a big gay goddess.”

Lune blushes madly before remembering that Severa is there, sitting in the corner, twirling a straw around in an empty soda can. “I just… know what we have. And what we could be missing. And I don’t think we deserve to.”

“That’s still really cool of you, Lune. You’re really nice.”

Lune’s about to combust. “Am not.”

Soleil smiles. The whole damn cafe lights up, and Lune can’t help how brightly she smiles in turn. “Are too. Trust me, I know this.”

Lune decides to take her word for it. Kind of.

After Soleil leaves, Lune hears an addressing whistle from Severa, who sits at the end of the bar in the stool that Noire usually sits in. Lune throws her hands up. “What am I, a fucking dog?” Maybe baristas aren't supposed to say _fuck_ but this one does.

“Not my fault I’ve known you for three days and you never told me your name.”

Lune tweaks the nametag on her breast. “Well, fuck me sideways then, I didn't know you couldn't read.” Severa laughs a bit at her insolence. Lune isn’t used to being charming, especially so naturally. Maybe she could be one of the girls that someone would be just naturally interested in. Maybe she can catch the eye of someone like Sole-

Severa clears her throat and Lune nearly jumps up. “Shit, sorry, I was spaci- Lune. My name’s Lune.”

Severa chuckles. “Lune? Loony Lune?” She mimes a cuckoo sign.

Lune glowers. “Starting to wish I hadn’t told you.”

Severa smirks, then her frost starts to melt into a real, tender smile. 

“She’s cute. That girl you were talking to. I think she likes you.”

Lune’s eyes widen. “Oh _hell_ no. There’s no way. _That girl_ has been a total player since she was twelve. I’d be the easiest target in the world for her to hit on in that cheesy damn way she always does, and yet…”

Lune sighs. 

Severa shrugs. “I still say you should give it a try. Stop standing still.”

Lune meets her eyes. “Thanks, mom.” Severa smirks at her snideness and how she doesn’t mean it. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Before Lune can miss Severa’s softness, she smiles warmly again.

By the time Friday rolls around, a scene is made straight out of a sappy romance novel. A confession, a confession back, a kiss, the entire damn cafe applauding, and Lune feels happier than she imagined. She’s happy for Flora, who deserves to be in a romance novel and possibly more, and for Kjelle, a gentle giant whose softening up over time was fucking adorable, but she’s pensive about herself, how she feels like she’s going nowhere. 

Maybe Severa was right. Maybe she should change that.

\---

On Tuesday, Noire returns, and Lune feels like she might be one of the, like, five teenagers to die from a heart attack in human history. It’s only eleven in the morning. There’s no way she can get her to stay for seven hours, but good gods, she wants to.

She talks to Noire a lot at the bar and gets so little register work done that Flora takes over. She apologizes to the senior waitress, but Flora's lighter than air after Friday and was never one to make a fuss anyway. Lune diverts her focus to Noire, who always meets her words with a smile before talking about a mixture of herbs that works as a good tonic for sleepless nights. Lune always used to think that herbal medicine was a load of hippy-dippy bullshit, but the way Noire talks about it seems to make sense, especially when it errs into the context of her own health. Besides, it’s nice to know that Noire has a path she’s on, even if the look in her eyes is of someone who is never quite satisfied. 

When Noire goes to leave, Lune holds her hand up. Noire’s surprised, but her eyes don’t leave Lune’s as she tries to figure out what to do. She wants to tell Noire that she’s seen Severa, but that might scare her away. She doesn’t know how Noire feels about it all. She hasn’t set up a watch for her old flame for a month now. She might have taken Lune’s advice and let it go, and Lune would be bringing it all back.

_That’s why no one should trust me for romantic advice._

“I uh…” 

She figures it out. 

“I’ve never technically done this before, so like, I should express that this is entirely platonic.” 

Noire giggles. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Lune reaches around Flora for a napkin from underneath the counter. Plucking a pen from near the card reader, she jots down her number on the napkin. Noire giggles as she recognizes what Lune’s doing. “I feel like that’s supposed to be the other way around.”

“You’d know more than I would,” Lune quips like she isn’t bitter, like the world where cute girls give the coffee girls their numbers is way too close to this one for comfort. “But yeah. Give me a call when you wanna talk, and, you know… I’ll do the same.”

Noire smiles. “Thanks, Lune. I appreciate it.” She folds it up gingerly and sets it in her purse. Lune goes to put Noire’s empty dishes in the sink, but when she returns only a five-dollar bill remains. _That’s more than the damn coffee she ordered._ Lune collects it with a smile, deciding that Noire really is generous.

During the lunch break, Lune pulls her phone out of the bag in her locker in the break room. Sure enough, a new number has sent her a text simply reading _Noire :)_

The tangibility of it all smacks Lune in the face with how relieving it all is. 

\---

Of course, just her luck, Severa doesn’t come in that evening or the next. During that time, Lune does call Noire. Nothing too circumstantial strikes her in the face, but she learns a bit more about her studies in medicine. Her mom was a great herbalist, but that’s the only compliment that Noire can give her without second-guessing herself, and Lune doesn't get the impression that Nah was any more cool with her. Even though she passed a few years ago, absence has not made their hearts grow fonder. Lune talks about her mom in blissful ignorance of a struggle, aside from her mom asking embarrassing questions like _so you’re like a boy, right_ and getting the acronym mixed up but still finding it in her to tease the hell out of Lune whenever Soleil comes up. Noire giggles at every mention, like a semi-understanding parent is a novelty.

“My mom never knew,” she admits that night over the phone. Lune is on the top bunk of her bedroom, the lower one never having been occupied aside from the occasional sleepover. 

“Never knew what?” She asks, then covers her mouth when she realizes what an idiot she is. “Oh. Oh, that.” 

A few seconds of static as they breathe into the ends of their phones.

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a weak smile in Noire’s voice. “Don’t be. I’m glad that it took you a second. I almost wish that you never had to realize it at all.”

Lune fidgets. “I mean, yeah. I never really, like… _really_ struggled, but… I think stuff like that, even when it gets rusty… it still means something. Like… I guess it’s just a thing all the gays just… know too well, no matter what. Instinctive language.”

“I just hope that we get to the day where we can’t imagine it at all.”

Lune smiles, but she feels close to crying. Again. She's been a weepier mess this fall than she has in the seventy-eight seasons prior.

“I should get some sleep,” Noire says. “It was nice talking to you.”

“It was. Love you, Noire.”

“Love you too, Lune.”

As the phone hangs up, Lune reflects on the last exchange. Noire’s one of the few people she’s ever said that to, and what’s scary is that Lune means it. Even in the slightest, most casual way, Lune means it, and more than anything, she loves how secure she’s feeling. Even with how good her life is, she’s never felt as secure in her gayness as she has now. Like there are no questions to ask herself, nothing to be prepared for. 

She then dials Soleil’s number. She expects Soleil not to answer because she’s probably on a date, but realizes that Soleil hasn’t even mentioned another girl in awhile when she picks up and says “Hey there Lune.” She sounds uncharacteristically nervous. “What’s up?”

Lune smiles and looks at the ceiling above her. She doesn’t regret the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling that she refuses to take down and hasn't since she got them at three. Maybe all the stars just need a moon, and she’s the right moon for the job. 

She’s already good at lighting the way for others. 

“Hey, Soleil. I just…” When Lune realizes everything, it hits her to the point where she kind of wants to _actually_ cry at how lucky she is to know someone who makes her heart jump like Soleil. “Just wanted to hear your voice, I guess.”

Soleil giggles. It's so damn cute that Lune almost melts. "Anytime, Lune."

"You sound like you almost mean that." 

"Aw, shush. Course I do."

Lune hears Soleil's peaceful breath through the phone. It's almost enough. Still…

"So I'm not sure if you know this, but there's this lady named Noire…"

\---

It’s go time. 

When Severa finally shows up again on Wednesday, Lune knows that it’s do or die. Severa says that work held her up the last few nights, but Lune can tell that she means the last few years. Regret consumes her to a point that frankly stresses Lune the hell out by proxy. 

Soleil is also there, alone once more in a way that seems like a message even Lune’s dense ass can’t miss. She walks to her table and sits down, taking a deep breath. 

“Soleil, if you tell anyone else this has ever happened, I’ll kill you.”

With a twinkling smile: “What’s up?”

“I’m scared shitless.”

Soleil coos. “I get that. It’s been so long and so… so much strife, I guess. I just… even I wanna see it work out.”

“What if it doesn’t?” 

Lune finally lets her guard down, sighing, head in her hands folded on the table. 

“I just want… I want it to go well, Soleil. I think when I first started talking to Noire, it was something that I thought could be fixed. But…” She breathes again. Damn it, if she cries now she’s gonna take the fork from Soleil’s pie and gouge her eyes out. “I don’t know. I just get really crazy attached to… shit like this working out. Especially the more I realize that it often doesn’t.”

Soleil hands Lune her unused napkin with a knowing look in her eye. Grateful, Lune dabs tears out of her eyes and blows her nose into it. Then, to her surprise, Soleil takes her free hand. 

“If you believe in it, it’s worth a try. Anything you believe in has gotta be worth it.” 

Lune’s so rapturously happy that she nearly tells Soleil _I love you_ right then and there, but she already feels vulnerable enough as it is. “I’ll text her.”

“Good girl.”

“You’re gonna kill me,” Lune threatens, blushing deeply as she starts to write a text. Soleil giggles scandalously. 

_Hey Noire. It’s Lune. You’ll never guess who else is here._

A few seconds later, Lune gets five notifications. Soleil hears her phone buzz something intense and cackles. “You’ve got mail!”

“Look, it could be _bad_ mail! Last I felt, Noire just wanted to move on with her life and I just dragged her into it. She's gonna be so mad.” 

Soleil gestures to Lune's phone. "Or you can always check."

"Check for me." 

Soleil blinks. "Scusi?" 

"Check for me, please, or I'm gonna die." 

Soleil giggles. "Okay, okay." Taking the phone, she muses "I never knew goddess could even get scared." 

Strangely, that doesn't help Lune's nerves. 

Soleil moves a thing or two on Lune's phone and reads intently, then reads again. A smile creeps on her face, and Lune can't believe it. 

"What? Soleil, tell me!" 

"It's not bad mail. Not at all." 

"What?" 

Soleil just hands the phone back for her to read the messages themselves.

_Who?_

_Wait._

_WAIT oh my god._

_Keep her there, will you? I’m getting my shoes back on right now._

_Maybe get out of my PJs._

Lune smiles with something she can feel that surpasses her years. _Definitely._

_Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!_

Lune places her phone back in her pocket. "Jesus fuck." 

"I keep saying it. You're a goddess." 

"I'm gonna kill you if you keep teasing me." Lune’s feeling both breathy and breathless. 

"I'd never tease you. You're the wildflower." Soleil looks proud of all of the years that she's been Lune's friend. "The Vildeblume's vildeblume."

Lune's a little stunned at how startlingly sincere Soleil is at her. Even in her cheesiest pick-up lines, she was never this amorous. Lune might die if she doesn't leave, so she blurts a weak "I, I-I-I… I'm gonna do things" and runs off, like actually runs, a cheery giggle the last thing she hears from Soleil.

Lune stops near Severa, who looks at her with a trademark smirk. “What kind of service is this? I haven’t seen you more than ten seconds all night.”

Lune doesn’t have time to waste. “Severa.”

The sternness in her tone causes Severa to look at her with surprise. 

“Severa, she’s on her way.”

“What?!”

The way Severa reacts tells the story of god-knows-how-many-years. Lune places a hand on her shoulder and Severa admits “I have no idea what to say. I have no fucking idea of what she wants to hear.”

Lune shrugs and offers up a little bit of nineteen-year-old advice. “Just… you know. I guess to be honest. I think she wants to know that you’re sorry and that you wanna make it right.”

“You make it sound so fucking easy!”

“I mean…” Luna closes her eyes. When she opens them, she makes sure her smile is calming and reassuring. She’s more mature than she realized she could ever have been, but probably only as mature as she needs to be. 

“Might actually just be that easy, Severa.”

Severa looks away, her fire calming. After a deep breath: “Thanks, Loony. I appreciate it.”

Lune chuckles with sardonic love. “You’re welcome, you old bitch.”

That’s the height of affection between them. Lune lets her go and gets back to cleaning. Each minute feels impossibly slow, and each dish she washes feels impossible to clean in her haze, but every time Lune looks at Soleil, alone yet the most blissful she’s ever been, she feels a sense of calmness in her chest.

Maybe she _will_ do something about that. At least to stop being the only single lesbian left working in Vildeblume.

Lune all but forgot that there were bells on the door before she hears it being pushed open violently, Noire standing in the doorway with the first blouse and capris that she could probably find. Severa looks equally nervous despite being in a confident leather jacket and black jeans. They regard each other with pause, so much in between them that, for the first time in her unlisted career of setting up lesbians, Lune feels like an intruder. 

Finally, Noire runs up and hugs Severa, all of the tension melting off of her as she says Severa’s name over and over. There’s no resentment in her voice. There’s no sorrow, no loss, no concern about why the years abandoned them both for so long. She says it like Lune imagines the father welcomed back the prodigal son. 

“I missed you so much,” Severa whispers just loud enough for Lune to hear. 

Lune excuses herself behind the doors to the kitchen. Tears fill her eyes as she looks to the tin ceiling and something powerful floods her emotional state. It’s something real, something grounding, something rewarding, something that tells her doing things to help others also helps her figure herself out. She's liked to help the nervous sapphics of the world go for it, but this is different. She's a nineteen-year-old dumb gay virgin with no life experience that anyone cares about, but she feels that she actually got two worlds back into orbit.

It’s the happiest that she’s felt in so long.

**Author's Note:**

> The song this work was based off of was The Running Styles of New York by The Tallest Man On Earth, but really his entire album I Love You, It's A Fever Dream, which I actually really recommend. 
> 
> I really tried to run this through the perspective of... well, one of us. Like, what would one of us do if we were in this situation? That's why things feel a bit naive and incomplete- it's how Lune would see this story. I hope I did it justice.


End file.
